


twin sized (air) mattresses

by ohmygodwhy



Series: sweet pea's crush on fangs (and other stories) [7]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Underage Smoking, cult plotline?? boarding school plotline??? i dont know them, i leave for two seasons and THIS is what happens??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23757025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: Sweet Pea immediately goes to claim the bed by dropping his bag and his jacket on it, but Jones says, “Dad says we have to switch off who gets the real mattress!”“Goddammit,” Sweet Pea says. “I call the first night, I fucking call it.”Jones looks him dead in the eye and says, “I think Fangs should get it the first night.” Everyone knows that everyone—obviously including Sweet Pea—has a soft spot for Fangs. What’s he gonna do, say no?(aka the one where the serpents move into the jones' new house with them because I Say So)
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Jughead Jones, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz, Fangs Fogarty & Jughead Jones, Fangs Fogarty/Sweet Pea, Jughead Jones & Sweet Pea
Series: sweet pea's crush on fangs (and other stories) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/874923
Comments: 15
Kudos: 130





	twin sized (air) mattresses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serpentheir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentheir/gifts).



> for sebastian bc he helped come up w this galaxy brain idea 😌
> 
> where are betty and her mom living? no idea. that isn't whats important. what is important is me knowing that the rest of the serpents aren't still living in TENTS

Sweet Pea hears it first from Fangs, who heard it from Toni, who heard it from Jones himself.

“FP bought a house?” He echoes.

Fangs shakes his head, “Technically, Mrs Jones bought the house. But I guess she’s... leaving again? I dunno, it’s all complicated and shit.”

Sweet Pea, to be honest, doesn’t really care about who bought it; he mainly just wants to know: “And we can really, like, move in?”

Fangs nods this time, more excited, “Yeah. Apparently it’s pretty big—like, two whole stories.” 

“Holy shit,” Sweet Pea really might tear up right here, right now, at the thought of not having to sleep in a fucking tent another night, “We’re done sleeping in tents.”

“We’re done sleeping in tents,” Fangs repeats, and throws his hand up—Sweet Pea pulls off their personal secret handshake perfectly, of course; it had taken them weeks to get it right, back when they first came up with it. 

“Thank god,” Sweet Pea shouts; his back feels better already, “I am never going camping again!” 

“So... hold up. This is your ex-girlfriend’s house?” Toni asks, arms crossed as they stare up at the giant ass two story suburban nightmare in front of them, “You bought your ex-girlfriend's house?”

“Technically my mom bought it,” Jones says, stepping aside to let them in, “It’s really fuckin’ weird.” 

Sweet Pea snorts, throwing an arm over Jones’ shoulder and pulling him inside with them. 

“Honestly, I wouldn’t even care if this was your Northside boyfriend’s old house,” he says, watching Jones roll his eyes like he does whenever the ginger asshole is brought up, “Anything is better than a tent.”

“Archie’s not my boyfriend,” Jones says, probably just to say it at this point. “Also, would you still be saying that if you had to live _with_ him?”

Sweet Pea makes a face, and Jones laughs, so Sweet Pea shoves him further into the house. “Anything’s better than a tent, Jones. Even living with you.”

“We’ve already all lived together for months,” Toni points out. 

Sweet Pea makes a sound that could be agreement if you read into it enough. Jones obviously does, because he gives that smile that means he thinks he’s won something. Which he hasn’t, obviously. 

“Whatever,” he says, “Give us the tour, mister home owner.”

“Do I look like I own this house?” Jones asks, but gestures for them to follow him anyway. 

Sweet Pea finds out he has to share a room, what with there being a shit ton of people in the house, but that’s fine, ‘cause it’s just Fangs and Jones, and the room is fucking _huge_ compared to what Sweet Pea is used to. It apparently used to be Jones’ ex-girlfriend’s room, a fact which he mumbles out very quickly and then moves on just as fast, and there isn’t much furniture in it—one decently sized bed and two twin sized blow up mattresses, a bedside table and a dresser—but it’s years away from a shitty tent and a sleeping bag. 

Sweet Pea immediately goes to claim the bed by dropping his bag and his jacket on it, but Jones says, “Dad says we have to switch off who gets the real mattress!” 

“God _dammit,_ ” Sweet Pea says. “I call the first night, I fucking call it.”

Jones looks him dead in the eye and says, “I think Fangs should get it the first night.”

Everyone knows that _everyone_ —obviously including Sweet Pea—has a soft spot for Fangs. What’s he gonna do, say no? 

Sweet Pea crosses his arms, and turns to look at Fangs, “Of course you can take it the first night.” 

Fangs look so grateful that Sweet Pea isn’t even that mad about it. Maybe he can find a way to poke a hole in Jones’ air mattress, he thinks for a moment, and then remembers they’re switching off, and decides he’ll find another way to get back at him. 

Ricky’s sucking it up and moving in with his dad, and Toni won’t technically be living-living with them, either—like, she won’t be sleeping here or anything. Her rich girlfriend has her all hooked up in her big mansion—a good portion of the serpents are going there, too. Not permanently, probably, but long enough for them to all figure out what the fuck to do now that the trailer park is gone for good. Thank you Hiram Lodge. Sweet Pea hopes he, like, stays in prison the next time he goes. Not super likely, considering he’s been in and out twice, but hey. Sweet Pea did two stints in juvie, too. Maybe third time’s the charm—make it stick for good. 

“Don’t know about that,” Mr Jones says; you would think sleeping a few tents down from the guy would get Sweet Pea used to, y’know, having meals with him, but it’s still kinda weird, “Money talks more than any judge or jury ever could.”

Jughead—he cant keep calling them both Jones in his head when they’re in the same room, or he’s gonna lose track of who he’s thinking about—nods along absently, “He literally built the prison they put him in last time—what did they think was gonna happen?”

Mr Jones frowns, years worth of grudges behind it. “Damn Lodges—nothing’s gone right for us since they rolled into town.”

There’s a heavy silence, for a moment, where Sweet Pea is sure they’re all thinking about how much they wish Hiram Lodge would just fucking stay in prison already, before Sweet Pea can’t take it anymore and sighs, loudly. 

“Wanna watch a movie?” He suggests.

Everyone blinks at him for a moment, even Jughead—which is dumb, because the guy literally loves movies—before FP laughs. 

“Finish your damn veggies first,” he says, shockingly fatherly in a way that gives Sweet Pea some sort of whiplash, “Or else you might shrink.” 

Jughead snorts at that, and Sweet Pea says, “You wish you were as tall as me.”

Jughead kicks him lightly under the table; Sweet Pea kicks him back, harder than he meant to, and FP tells them to cut it out or I’m taking the damn TV for myself. 

They decide to cut it out.

They spend the rest of the night binging the Paranormal Activity movies, all of them sprawled out on or adjacent to the couch, which are kind of entertaining but mostly just shitty, which means they get to have fun tearing them apart the whole time. It’s Sweet Pea’s turn to take the Comfy, Real Mattress, which means it’s also Fangs’ turn, and then Fangs feels bad making Jughead be the only one to sleep on a shitty mattress, so Sweet Pea ends up claiming the far side of the bed, the wall on one side of him and Fangs on the other. 

Even though he can barely breathe and keeps inhaling loose strands of Fangs’ hair and keeps thinking about how close he is and how if he stays still enough he can feel Fangs’ heart beat, it’s... not bad. It’s... nice to know that Fangs is here—and maybe even that Jones is here, too. That they’re all safe, and they won’t wake up in those shitty tents again. 

It’s nice. He falls asleep easier than he has in weeks.

(His back does ache like shit the next morning from being pressed up against the wall all night.

“If my back still hurts, what the fuck is the point?” he complains on their walk to school—imagine that: they’re close enough to walk. 

Jones has the fucking nerve to laugh at him, “There was plenty of room. You could’ve just... scooted over.”

“You were taking up like, half the bed!”

“You were hogging the blanket,” Jones shoots back. 

“Those things are both true,” Fangs says, ever the mediator when Toni isn’t around to shut them up.

Sweet Pea points at Jones, triumphant, “Told you.”

“He just said you were stealing the blanket, too.”

“Cause I was trying to cushion my back!”

It’s not a joke, but Jones seems to find it funny anyways, “God, fine,” he says, “I’ll sleep near the wall next time.”

He freezes right after he says it, like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or whatever the fuck the saying is. 

Next time, he said, and he might not have been serious, but it kind of sounded like he was. Never can quite tell with Jones. 

Still, he thinks for a moment, glancing at Fangs, who is obviously glancing at him, too, and considers. It was... nice. Crowded, but. Nice. 

He might regret it later, but he doesn’t much like the worried look on Jones’ face, the one he wears sometimes before he goes to talk to his annoying Northside boyfriend, so he crosses his arms and decides to say fuck it.

“Fine,” he says, and sighs, loud and put-upon, “I guess I’ll try not to steal the blanket.”

Jones looks immediately relieved—lord knows how tired he must be if he’s, like, showing his emotions and shit. 

“Y’know we could just use more than one blanket, right?” Fangs says.)

Okay, he’ll say it: he’s not sure how he feels about living so close to carrot top. He’s literally right next door. The window of their room—his room—can see directly into the Andrews’ kid’s room. It’s kind of creepy—and the guy leaves his curtains wide open at all times of day and night. 

His second night there, he walked into the room and caught a perfect view of the asshole taking his shirt off. In the middle of his room. In the middle of the evening, when the sun is going down and makes the light coming from his bedroom seem even brighter. Andrews had looked up right then, too, and the two of them had made awkward eye contact for about five, long seconds, before the guy held his shirt up to his chest like he was a girl covering up, and Sweet Pea flipped him off and yanked the curtains shut.

Fucking unbelievable. 

When Jones walks in later, backpack slung over his shoulder, Sweet Pea sits up and says, “Tell your boyfriend to shut his curtains.”

Jones blinks at him, “Huh?”

Sweet Pea gestures to the closed curtains, “Dumbass decided to change with his curtains wide fuckin’ open—does he not give a shit about privacy?”

Jones, asshole that he is, grins at him all teasing, and drops his backpack onto the far mattress, “You were watching Archie change? You sure you don’t have a crush on him?”

Sweet Pea throws a pillow at him, “It’s weird. I don’t wanna walk in and see his dick.”

Jughead snorts, “Wow, now you’re thinking about Archie’s dick?”

Sweet Pea grabs another pillow and stands up. Jones puts his hands up in surrender. 

“Okay, okay! I’ll tell him to stop pulling his shirt off in the middle of the room.”

Exact fucking details, huh? “Who’s watching him change, now?”

Jones actually flushes a little, which is a yes. “I’m not Alfred fuckin’ Hitchcock,” he says, sounding offended.

“I don’t know who the hell that is.”

Jones isn’t fazed by his lack of reference-catching anymore, just takes a second to explain, which is more than Cheryl ever does, “He’s, like, a director famous for voyeurism.”

“Gross.”

“I know.”

Sweet Pea considers for a moment, “I don’t think it counts as voyeurism if he’s doing it on purpose. That’s… kinda some weird foreplay, though.”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Jones says, hitting Sweet Pea’s leg with the pillow he threw at him. “For the last fucking time, Archie’s not my boyfriend.”

Sweet Pea laughs, and that’s about when Fangs walks in. He pauses at the door, eyes darting back and forth between the two of them. Jones huffs, and stands up.

“Hi, Fangs,” he greets, and then marches out of the room, tossing a weak bathroom excuse over his shoulder.

Fangs blinks after him, and then turns to blink at Sweet Pea, too.

“What’s he upset about?”

“Did you know Andrews’ bedroom window is, like, ten feet away from ours?” is Sweet Pea’s answer, “And that he changes with his curtains open?”

Fangs raises his eyebrows. “That’s… weird.”

“I think he does it on purpose—like, just in case Jones is watching.”

“Oh,” Fangs says, understanding, “And they’re still not...?”

“Fucking unbelievable, right?” Sweet Pea agrees, “Now that they’re living literally right next to each other, I give ‘em a month, tops.”

“Three weeks,” Fangs says, and they shake on it. 

Sweet Pea sighs, “Guess I gotta apologize to Jones, or he’ll be all bitchy for a few days.”

Besides, Sweet Pea thinks, everyone knows Jones only gets defensive when the thing he’s getting defensive about is true. He mostly just wishes that Jones would stop falling for preppy ass Northsiders all the time, so he could see less of them. Fucking ridiculous.

Andrews catches them outside the next morning, on their way to school. His eyes dart back and forth between the three of them, and he shuffles his feet uncomfortably. 

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Jones answers, trying his hardest to keep the air from getting too awkward. It mostly works.

“Do you—? Well, I was gonna take the truck to school, if you guys want a lift?”

Sweet Pea is tempted to say no on principle, but Jones shoots him a look that says _please be nice,_ and Fangs lights up at the offer.

So he just shrugs, and let’s Jones answer with a: “Yeah, sure. Thanks, Arch.”

Andrews smiles at him, and Jones smiles back, and Sweet Pea is beginning to wonder if he should’ve just stayed in his damn tent. 

The ride to school is fine; Andrews gives up the aux cord, so Jones automatically tosses it back to Fangs. Fangs, they’ve all agreed, has the best taste in music. Even Andrews seems impressed, which makes Sweet Pea swell with second hand pride. Good, he thinks, he should be impressed. 

They meet Toni and Cheryl on their way up the school’s front steps. Cheryl greets Andrews with a lilt of surprise—Sweet Pea forgot they’re, like, friends or something—and Archie gives an easy hello back, before turning to Jones and saying something about being late to English. He gives Jones a smile and a firm, definitely not a gay, pat on the back, and leaves. 

Jones frowns a little after him, and it’s annoying when Jones gets all down about Andrews’ dumb ass, so Sweet Pea throws an arm over his shoulder and walks him up the rest of the stairs with them.

“You wanna go get a drink?” He asks. 

“It’s too early to drink,” Toni says.

He scoffs, even though he knows she’s teasing, “I mean coffee or something. Or one of those sugary frappuccino nightmares you love.”

“You’re aware that class starts in about five minutes, right?” Cheryl says, but she sounds more amused than anything. Sweet Pea can still barely get a read on her sometimes, but he knows she makes Toni happy, and that’s what’s most important. Even if he doesn’t know what the fuck she’s taking about most of the time.

“Yeah,” he says, “But we got history first period,” by _we_ he means him, Fangs and Jones, “and everyone knows that class is a joke.” 

Jones hums, considering, and Sweet Pea feels the vibration of it against his skin. “I do love any opportunity to piss off Mister Waters,” he agrees. 

”How are you even still passing his class?” Toni asks.

“I write objectively good essays.” 

“I don’t think I’d call Mister Waters the epitome of good judgement.” 

Jones shrugs, “I know what he wants in an essay—I give him exactly what he’s looking for.”

Toni relents, “I have bio,” she says, “But I could skip this once. How ‘bout you, babe?” 

Cheryl does a very dramatic rendition of someone thinking very hard, “Why not?” She says, “I could use a little rebellion.”

Sweet Pea doesn’t bother to tell her that skipping first period to go get an overpriced drink to cheer up Jones’ dramatic, pining ass isn’t exactly the height of rebellion. He knows Toni thinks it’s cute that she gets excited about the little things. 

“Sick,” he says, spinning on his heels and dragging Jones along with him; he already knows Fangs is down without even asking, “Let’s get outta here before the bell rings.” 

They get outta there before the bell rings, and jump into Cheryl’s bright cherry fucking red convertible to drive to the nearest coffee place. 

Jones seems to cheer up, going back and forth with Toni about some old movie that was on TV last night, so Sweet Pea prides himself on a job well done, and turns to arm wrestle Fangs for who gets to drive the convertible back to the school. 

(Cheryl says that neither of them are driving her very expensive car, thanks, and then lets Fangs drive it anyways. Sweet Pea doesn’t mind much, ‘cause everyone, obviously including him, has a soft spot for Fangs.)

A few nights later, and the Andrews kid still hasn’t listened to Jones’ friendly advice about closing his damn curtains, and so he catches Sweet Pea blowing smoke out the window so the room doesn’t smell and get FP on their asses like it had the one time they smoked at Jones’ trailer while his dad was off on business or something for a few days. The guy had taken three steps inside and said, “At least fucking febreze the place, jesus.”

Andrews stares at him for a second, all wide-eyed and vaguely scandalized, like he hadn’t gotten community service for doing hard shit at one of the Lodge girl’s parties last year. Sweet Pea takes a long, deep drag and exhales hard, like he’s trying to make the ten foot distance between the two windows, just to make the kid look even more scandalized.

He’s about to shout something about how Jones does the exact same thing, when Jones actually walks in. He sees him leaning against the wall near the window, and goes, "Really? It's barely four P.M." but walks over anyways. Sweet Pea offers him a hit, ‘cause he’s nice like that and school’s been stressful, and then tilts his head to the side so he can watch Andrews eyes get even wider as he watches his bestie take a drag like a pro. Jones hasn’t coughed much since the first few times, but when he turns to exhale out the window and sees Andrews, he seems to choke on the smoke. 

“Shit,” Sweet Pea says, and pats the guy on the back til he’s done coughing--not coughing, he realizes as Jones wheezes the way he does when he thinks something’s really funny, he’s fucking laughing.

“Archie,” he manages, “Archie’s face, oh my god.” 

When Sweet Pea glances back up, Andrews’ eyes are still wide—in embarrassment, this time, and the fact that Sweet Pea’s close enough to tell is a testament to the fact that their windows are way too fucking close together--before he turns and awkwardly walks out of sight.

Sweet Pea snorts, and takes the water bottle Jones offers, still wheezing lightly. “You’re an asshole,” Jones says. 

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea agrees, “But it’s not my fault your boyfriend’s never watched anyone smoke weed before. Can’t believe that’s the guy who waved a gun around last year.”

“Are you ever gonna let that go?”

“No.”

Jones shrugs his shoulders as if to say _fair enough_ and then tilts his head back to take another hit. 

Fangs finds them like that later, laughing at dumb pictures on their phone, and tells them dinner is gonna be here soon, so they better get their shit together. And also to please hurry up and close the window before Scotty smells it from next door and comes knocking. 

It’s Jones’ night on the Real Mattress, and Sweet Pea isn’t sure if that means they’re all gonna pile on there again or not, ‘cause Jones is kinda shit at asking for things that he wants. Luckily for all of them, when Fangs is done brushing his teeth and sees he and Jones kind of just… sitting there, he walks over and flops down onto the Real Mattress next to Jones.

Jones blinks at him for a sec, and then scoots over. 

“You’re taking the wall side again,” Sweet Pea tells him, now that he’s free to stop pretending like they weren’t all gonna end up pressed together like a bunch of fuckin’ sardines again.

Jones rolls his eyes, but still shuffles backwards until his back hits the wall. “Only ‘cause you’ll bitch about it tomorrow. Here,” he says, unhooking his hearing aid and passing it to Sweet Pea, who sets it carefully on the bedside table next to Fangs’ water bottle that Sweet Pea sneaks sips out of when he isn’t looking. Or sometimes during the night, if he wakes up--who doesn’t enjoy chugging some water at three in the morning? 

“Grab the other blanket,” Fangs says before Sweet Pea can lay down and then use that as an excuse to not get back up. Sweet Pea sighs, but leans over to snatch it up anyways. 

“This one’s mine, then,” he says, holding it to his chest.

“Duh,” Jones says, where he’s all snuggled up against the wall, “Otherwise you’d steal it all.”

Sweet Pea decides not to answer, mostly ‘cause Jones is actually right and also he’s tired. 

“If you push me off the bed, I swear to god,” he says to Fangs, half a joke.

Fangs smiles back at him, small and pleased, and Sweet Pea is so, so fucking glad they’re done sleeping in tents. 

He sleeps hard as fuck that night, feeling safe and warm and comfortable. 

(He wakes up to half of his body leaning precariously off the edge of the bed, with Jones’ arm slung across Fangs’ chest and onto Sweet Pea’s neck. He slaps it off immediately, which doesn’t even wake the asshole up, shoves Fangs further onto the bed so he doesn’t fucking fall off, and goes back to sleep.)

(Yes, they’re late to school. It’s not his fault no one remembered to set an alarm.) 

**Author's Note:**

> ofc I had to toss a little jarchie in there. it's my brand. drop a comment to......get me thru it


End file.
